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Can't believe that we are already halfway through this internship. Life in Japan has become like a routine for me but I am still at the "honeymoon" stage of experiencing a new culture;) As I mentioned in the last two posts, my job is not only about communicating to university students. We interact with students from different ages and it is a valuable teaching experience for me. In this week, I did lots of elementary sessions. Even though I had field placement experience with elementary school student, I still find it different and difficult to engage a group of students from Japan, especially when we have language barriers. After a few sessions, I found out that elementary students need clearer instructions and they are very good at mimicking and repeating. They are very engaged with games that has more movements and rhythm involved, which related back to the theory of multiple intelligences that I learnt earlier in last semester. It's very surprising to see how the theory can be applied into practice. Also, with ESL young students, acting out and visual aid could be a big help when explaining things.
Besides teaching, I also find this internship experience enrich my knowledge about international education system. Education system in Japan quite interesting. Aoyama Gakuin is part of a comprehensive system and it contains pre-school, Elementary, Junior High, High school and Undergrad. This kind of system is very common in Japan and many universities have their own system, and high students who are in these kind of system could take the internal exam to the universities instead of the national exam. For example, Aoyama Gakuin High School students are able to take the internal exam to entry AGU. Therefore, more than 80% of students continue their higher education in AGU. This kind of education system is uncommon in both the U.S. and China.
It was also very surprising for me to see the children's literature corner in the English area:) Swimmy, That's not my hat... Those are great books that we studied in the children's literature class I took last semester. My cooperating teacher was very excited when I told her I took this course before and I shared my literature review blog with her.
Part 2: ONSEN!
(This is the view you get on the train!! AMAZING!!)
We also experienced Onsen (hot spring) culture on the weekend. In Japanese onsen, you need to change to yukata (the one I wear on picture 1) and take off all your clothes when you go into onsen, which could be a cultural shock to many people from other countries;0
Part 3: Foods
We went to a restaurant where you need to fish your own fish and then make it as sashimi. It is very interesting and the foods are very nice. However, the rating is only 3.5 in google map because some people from western countries feel like it is an animal abuse. It is also a different perspective due to cultural differences.
Final: DisneySea in tokyo
